S. Friedell, "Some Observations on the Talmudic Law of Torts". Rutgers Law Journal 15 (1984), 897-925.

Friedell's thesis is that Talmudic tort law generally left losses on tort-victims to a greater extent than Anglo-American law. A plaintiff under Jewish law had a cause of action only upon the occurrence of events carefully specified in the texts, and even then many elements of injury were noncompensable or were measured in ways favourable to the defendant. For some specific occurrences, early systems of loss-sharing gave way in the Talmud to a tort system based on fault, including the fault doctrine of contributory negligence which, under Jewish law, totally denied recovery unless the plaintiff was less at fault than the defendant. Friedell's analysis is primarily based upon the Talmudic treatment of the various contexts in which damage is caused by the defendant's ox. These settings and their accompanying rules are compared with equivalent settings in Anglo-American law. (D.H.P.)